Clash of Iron Read online

  Spring fixed her eyes on Lowa’s and said, as firmly and seriously as she could through her squashed mouth: “I did not use my magic on Mearhold.”

  Lowa released her, but her stare did not let up. Spring squirmed and resisted the urge to tell her all just to stop those eyes poking about in her head.

  “Enough of this,” said Lowa, “I’ve got a battle to plan.”

  “I’ll come to the battle. I’ll do whatever I can to help. I’m good with my sling! But I won’t be able to use magic. I’ll try, I will, but I know it won’t work.”

  “You do what you want.” Lowa strode away.

  Spring watched her walk off. She’d come to the woods to try and make herself feel better, but now she felt as rotten as she ever had.

  Chapter 3

  Dug wrinkled his nose at the endless Dumnonian army, stretching out of sight south and westwards across the grassy undulations of Sarum Plain. Opposite him, in the enemy line, horses stamped and blade-wheeled chariots creaked. Some hairy Dumnonian men and women shouted insults but for the most part they waited quietly like Dug. There’d be plenty of time for shouting once the Dumnonians charged. Assuming that they did charge. Dug didn’t know the battle plan in detail, he knew only that he and the hundred men he’d been put in charge of were to wait until the enemy came at them. He looked down and saw that his knuckles were white from gripping his hammer. He relaxed his hand, filled his lungs then breathed out long and slow.

  It was a cool, dry late summer’s day under a white cloud sky, which was a plus. Fighting was more pleasant when it wasn’t too hot. But why was he fighting at all? He could have carried on out of Maidun and be waking up now in some town like Bladonfort with a bit of a hangover, ready to start working on the next one. Instead he’d come back, had risen before it was light with thousands of other nervous bastards and was lining up for yet another battle. Great big badgers’ arses, why? Because, he admitted to himself with a self-chastising shake of his head, he was an idiot who wanted to impress Lowa, even though she didn’t even know he’d gone away, let alone that he’d come back, and she was too busy being queen to care anyway.

  Talk was that the Dumnonians numbered a hundred thousand men and women. Dug was sure that they didn’t. That was what the shout had said, and everybody had accepted it. People always exaggerated army sizes and it wasn’t as if anyone had popped over to the Dumnonian camp, asked them all to stand still and counted them. One thing was sure, though – there certainly were shiteloads of the nasty looking buggers – many, many, many more than the Maidun army had.

  So it looked like Queen Lowa’s reign was to be a short one. It was an odd twist of fate, mused Dug. If Lowa had waited less than a moon, then Zadar would still be ruling Maidun instead of her, the Dumnonians would have crushed him instead and would have avenged her dead sister and friends for her. But now Lowa was leading a formerly enemy army that she’d previously been a part of, against an army that she would have joined, had she known it was going to attack the army she was now leading. The world, thought Dug, was rarely straightforward.

  The outcome of the battle would be, though, without even taking the massive difference in army sizes into account. Before it had even begun, Lowa had made some blinding errors, as Dug had noticed that new kings and queens were wont to do.

  There was a ripple along the Dumnonian line and a couple of chariots started forward. Were they about to charge? Dug and the rest of the Maidun army tensed as one, but the chariots wheeled round to display a couple of naked, mooning posteriors, and returned to the Dumnonian lines.

  Now, where was I? thought Dug. Oh yes, he’d been thinking that he should have gone to the war council and pointed out how rubbish the plan was, and not chickened out of it because he didn’t want to see Lowa and that woman-stealing arsehole Ragnall together. Whatever advice Drustan, Carden, Atlas and the rest had given her, it had either been crap or she’d ignored it. He could see three glaring mistakes.

  First rule when fighting a larger army was to find somewhere narrow to fight, like a valley or, better, a cliff-lined gorge, to ensure that fighting was never more then one on one. Yet Lowa had decided to meet Samalur on an open plain, where he would surely encircle her much smaller force and attack every soldier of hers with ten of his.

  Second rule with a smaller army was surprise. Hit the enemy when and where they didn’t expect it. Yet the Dumnonians had been camped in the same place for three days, and Lowa had announced that she would attack them there. It couldn’t have been less of a surprise.

  The third, and biggest, error was meeting Samalur in battle at all. An army that size would be able to feed itself for only a matter of days in enemy territory, so, had Lowa pulled her people up into impregnable Maidun Castle and closed the gates, the Dumnonians would have gone home soon enough.

  The only good thing he’d heard that she’d done was to tell the Dumnonian king that they were going to attack the night before. With any luck he would have kept his troops awake in readiness, while the Maidun forces had slept. And, Dug admitted to himself, he didn’t know everything. There might have been more to the plan than immediately met the eye. Whatever, it didn’t matter. He just had to follow orders, give orders, and fight.

  Down by his feet were two long spears and a large, hefty shield. They’d been sneaked forward once the ranks were already in place so that the Dumnonians wouldn’t know they were there. That was pretty tricksy and should really muck up a chariot charge, so it was possible, he supposed, that Lowa had other schemes in place.

  Another positive was that the breeze was an easterly on the Maidunites backs, rather than the more common south-westerly. That was a spot of luck, since their projectiles would go further than the enemy’s, but it was hardly a gale, and there was no way Lowa could claim credit for the direction of the wind.

  Dug’s thoughts were interrupted by a rattling blare of bronze trumpets with wooden clackers in their mouths. They rang out first from the Dumnonian army, then from their own. The Dumnonian front line shuddered as one, then rolled forwards. Here we go. Dug felt the contents of his stomach lurch and asked Makka the god of war to ensure, if nothing else, that he didn’t shit in his leather battle trousers. If he was going to the Otherworld today he wanted to arrive clean-arsed.

  “Ready!” he shouted, looking around at his men and women, then added, “Arms’ length between you all!” more for something to say than anything else – they were already well spaced. They looked back and him and nodded; some were wide-eyed with their lips parted in fear, some serious, some wild-eyed and froth-mouthed. They were mostly armoured in leather like him, a few wore iron helmets like his. Most were armed either with hefty iron swords or stout spears. He was the only one with a hammer. Very few, thank Toutatis, looked like they were going to flee before the fighting had begun, so that at least was a great improvement on some battles he’d been in. He looked back to the Dumnonians and spotted a large dragonfly, flying between the armies as if it was just another day.

  From horseback in the centre, atop one of the burial mounds that clung on to Sarum Plain’s uplands like a well-spaced migration of giant slugs that had died and solidified, Lowa watched as the Dumnonian chariots charged her right flank. She’d sent Atlas to the right with the infantry to encourage Samalur to line his heavy chariots there. The young Dumnonian king had obliged. With his massively superior force, Samalur had done the sensible thing and matched her battle lines on both sides, heavy chariots on the left, infantry on the right, light chariots and cavalry in reserve ready to zoom wherever they were needed. Numerically superior, the Dumnonians had no incentive to try anything more advanced than the classic “infantry attacks chariots, chariots attack infantry” tactics.

  Dug was leading a section on the right, she remembered once again, about to be hit by thousands of thundering chariots and their crews of murderous, heavily armed Dumnonians. Atlas had told her that he’d come back to Maidun offering his services, and that he’d been given a company to lead. She was hur
t that he hadn’t been to see her on his return, but then again it wasn’t long since she’d woken him up by having sex with Ragnall on the other side of the campfire. How could she begin to explain and apologise for that? She banished Dug from her thoughts. This was no time for childish romanticising.

  Thinking of children … it was irksome that Spring wouldn’t use her magic. If the girl had made Lowa feel like she did when she’d fought the chariot and Chamanca, she would have taken on the whole Dumnonian army herself. But Lowa believed that she’d been telling the truth about not being able to use her magic, because the girl was a terrible liar. Lowa was sure she’d lied about using her magic on Mearhold, and she had a fairly firm idea about what the jealous little brat might have done. That was something else she’d have to address if they lived through the day. Right now, she’d found another use for Spring.

  Drustan had helped a little, magic-wise. By sacrificing an ox, so he said, he’d caused the wind to veer round to the east so that it was behind them. But that was it. He said that those who could use the gods’ powers could only draw a limited amount. Lowa had asked him if there was anyone else. He’d said no. The gods had shown him that he was going to find a young person who was the greatest ever practitioner of magic. He’d thought that this was Ragnall, and he’d even tricked Ragnall into believing he’d lit fires with his mind in order to draw it out of him, but now he knew that the young man had no contact with the gods. The magic youngster foretold was Spring.

  But now Spring had lost her magic. Had the gods deserted her, Lowa wondered, because the Maidun army was doomed to be annihilated by the Dumnonians, and gods don’t like helping losers?

  There was one way to find out.

  She raised her arm and dropped it. The Maidun trumpets spewed their cacophony. Her army’s left, her mass of heavy chariots, stirred then surged towards the Dumnonian line of foot soldiers.

  On her right, the Dumnonian chariots charged the Maidun infantry. Javelins launched. Maidunite shields appeared like a sudden bloom of flowers. There was a great howl of disappointment from the Dumnonians as their missiles were deflected by the revealed defences, but they charged on, swords aloft, wheel-blades flashing.

  At the last moment, all along Maidun’s right flank, long spears sprung up like hair bristling on a wildcat’s neck. The Dumnonian chariot line faltered as thousands of reins were yanked in panic, but it was too late. The horses and chariots hit the infantry’s spears. A heartbeat later she heard the sound of a thousand wooden poles snapping under the impact of horses and people, followed by the screams of Danu knew how many Dumnonian horses and men as iron spear heads punctured their limbs, stomachs, faces … She thought of her own soldiers, kneeling behind shields as tons of man, horse, iron and wood smashed down around them. All along the Maidun line, horses’ hooves would be crushing skulls and splintered chariot draught poles impaling the chests of her own people. That had been unavoidable. She prayed that not too many were killed, and that none of them was Dug.

  The Maidun front line held. The Dumnonian attack crumpled as wave after wave of horses, chariots and charioteers crashed into and on to the broken pile of their fallen comrades.

  On the left, Maidun’s chariots stopped twenty paces short of the enemy line, as, Lowa thought with some satisfaction, the Dumnonian heavy chariots should have done. Maidunite javelins flew. The volley whumped harmlessly into thousands of Dumnonian shields. The Dumnonians shouted in delight, dropped their shields and charged. The Maidun chariots paused for a moment, then unleashed their second, unexpected salvo of javelins. That was much more successful, as were the third, fourth and fifth javelin volleys. Hundreds of Dumnonians fell. Their line dissolved in disarray. Some ran back to retrieve their shields. Some ran at the chariots. Captains screamed contradictory commands.

  For centuries it had been the pan-tribal British custom to carry only one javelin in each chariot. You chucked that as an opener, then the crew-warriors dismounted for some proper mêlée fighting with swords, axes, hammers and the like. It hadn’t been easy, but Lowa was glad she’d talked the charioteers into flouting tradition and carrying five javelins each. Hopefully now, if they survived this battle, some of the other innovations she had in mind might be more readily accepted.

  On the right, her infantry dropped their pikes and dashed in to finish off the downed charioteers. The Dumnonians saw the line broken, rallied and came at them, but the Maidun soldiers rolled back into their line, retrieved their spare, unbroken pikes, held them aloft and retreated steadily, backwards and outwards, away from Lowa and the centre. The Dumnonian heavy chariots pressed, but, having seen what happened to the first lot, held back from all-out attack on those bristling pikes.

  Another discordant trumpet blast honked from the Dumnonian centre and their light chariots set off at a gallop to swing around Maidun’s right and attack the flank of the infantry. Lowa gritted her teeth. She’d planned on Samalur doing exactly that, but not so quickly. If the Dumnonian chariots got round behind her right flank, then her plan was screwed and they were all dead. It was going to be close.

  On the left, the Maidun charioteers had exhausted their javelins. Hundreds of Dumnonians had been killed or disabled, but that was only a tiny proportion of their force and the battle there was far from over. On the same trumpet call that sent Dumnonia’s light chariots around their left edge, thousands upon thousands of their infantry charged on the Dumnonian right, armed with shields and heavy iron swords.

  The Maidun chariots cantered away. Like the Maidun infantry, they retreated both backwards and away from the centre, spreading the width of the battlefield.

  One Maidun chariot stopped and was soon left behind, on its own between the two armies. A little warrior leapt out, sword in one hand, ball-mace in the other. Even from a couple of hundred paces away, Lowa recognised Chamanca the Iberian, ex-bodyguard to Zadar, the woman who had bested her on Mearhold and would have done again in the Maidun arena had it not been for Spring’s magic. The fastest Dumnonian infantry reached the lone figure. A blur of movement, the Dumnonians fell and the Iberian was left standing. But there were many more Dumnonians coming. Chamanca leapt for her chariot, but too late. The main body of the Dumnonian infantry swept over and gobbled up horse, chariot, driver and Chamanca. Lowa grimaced, then smiled as Chamanca’s chariot burst from the Dumnonian ranks, with the Iberian aboard and shaking her fist at the pursuers.

  Queen Lowa looked back to Spring, on horseback behind her, and nodded. The girl yelled a screeching “Fiiiiiiiii – errrrrrrr!!!!”, louder than any trumpet or whistle. All along the rear of Lowa’s battle line, men and women put torches to the tight bundles of thatch that sat on a long line of catapults.

  Dug looked about, shaking his head in exasperation. Someone had taken his badger-fucking spear. “Remember where you put your spare spear, and make sure you pick up the same one again. Not someone else’s.” That’s what he’d told them. But some wanker had taken his. It was unforgivable.

  He saw a spare one and bent to pick it up.

  “Oi! That’s mine! Hands off!” shouted a young, square-jawed woman. “It’s your plan, Dug! What’s everyone else going to do if you don’t stick to it? Come on Dug, leadership!”

  It was Nita, Mal’s wife. Mal, next to her, raised a “you see what I have to put up with?” eyebrow.

  Dug nodded. He didn’t want the spear, he was a lot happier with his hammer, but Nita was right. He was leader and he wanted to show everyone what to do with their spears. However, looking about, they seemed to have got the idea. They were marching steadily backwards in good order, long spears raised. Dug shook his head in gratified surprise. He’d never commanded men and women who did what they were told more than about ten per cent of the time. Say what you like about Zadar, but his troops knew how to follow orders.

  “You all right there, Mal?” Dug had been glad to see a familiar face when his old mate Mal Fletcher had sought him out a couple of days before.

  Mal winked. “We should have
stayed back at base and guarded the tavern like you suggested. Thought I’d retired long ago, but this one,” he cocked his head at his wife, “reckoned Lowa would need our help.”

  Dug nipped in behind Mal. Without a spear, he’d just be in the way in the front line. “Lot of trouble, that Lowa. Might get us all killed one day.” It was rubbish banter and Dug knew it, but at times like this it was good to be distracted from one’s surroundings.

  “One day? Have you seen what’s coming?” Behind and uphill of the pursuing heavy chariots, they could see the Dumnonian light chariots thundering northwards across the plain, perpendicular to the line of battle. The lead chariots had already swung eastwards towards them, aiming for the criminally exposed Maidun right flank. A flash off to the left caught his eye.

  “Oh no,” said Dug. “Look, she’s gone and fired her bloody catapults too late. If they were meant to slow the light chariots, which I bet they were, then we’re in trouble.”

  “She’s lost it!” said Mal. “She’s lost her mind and we’re all going to die.”

  Nita slapped his arm with the flat of her sword. “Lowa knows what she’s doing.”

  “Then why,” said Mal, “has she used the one unusual weapon we’ve got that might actually surprise the enemy to bombard the gap left by the Dumnonians attacking us? What did she hit?” Mal stood on tiptoes to peer over soldiers’ heads. “Yup, thought so, a grassy space where the enemy used to be. I’m sorry, Nita, but she really doesn’t know what she’s doing with those catapults.”

  Nita didn’t have an answer.

  Dug looked to Atlas to see if he’d seen what had happened. He had. Two hundred paces away along the front line, the large African had climbed on to someone’s shoulders; Carden Nancarrow’s probably, since those two were always together and Carden was about the only man in the army who could have born Atlas’ armoured weight. The Kushite blew an iron whistle twice.